Our next door neighbors are preparing to move in a couple of months.  It is a fabulous opportunity for them, but it is a very sad prospect for us.  We couldn’t have chosen better neighbors.  Their children are right around the same age as ours, and we spend the majority of our afternoons in our front yards, watching the kids ride bikes or scooters back and forth, playing make believe games and trading off houses fo sleepovers with the older ones.  When they leave, it will be a huge adjustment.

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My mother-in-law started a project almost 8 years ago that has evolved into an Event each August.  She hand-wrote a letter to her first-born grandson, my son, Travis.  Read more…

When my older son was beginning to show an interest in reading, we looked for ways to encourage his interest without pressuring him to learn to read (he was four at the time).  I have observed, much too often in my preschool-teaching days, parents who want their child to succeed at reading to the degree that the child becomes completely turned off of the idea of understanding the written word.  Combining things children love with print can encourage the child to want to know more about how words work and what reading is all about. Read more…

Picaboo is an amazing site where you upload your pictures onto templates, and the company binds them into a book for you!  I have seen the product first-hand, and it is truly beautiful.  You can check out some samples on their website.  And, even though I was initially turned off by the price of these projects, I realized in the end that, after I spend all that money on an album, paper, stickers, die cuts, markers, tape and such, the price can’t be beat.

So, for all you non-scrappy people out there…help is available!

There’s a friend of mine running a scrapbooking contest right now - you can win a Priority Mail box full of papers and scraps - FREE!  Stop on by and enter if you are a paper freak like myself! 

We spent this weekend in the company of my family.  My parents were in town, as well as my uncle, aunt and cousin from Slovenia.  And, my almost 92 year old grandmother was here as well.

There’s something nice about being around family, especially those you don’t get to see all that often.  And, for the boys, it was a wonderful experience in meeting a great group of people who are a part of their family history. Read more…

My favorite photo from our wedding isn’t one that the professional photographer took.  It is a 4×6 snapshot I have in a frame on my desk, taken by a close friend of ours at our reception.  It isn’t anything fancy, no formal pose, just Scott and I, grinning from ear to ear and glancing around at the camera.  A true capture of the moment. Read more…